Maybe someday the printer giants will make the ultimate prnter, but i doubt it....they need to sell printers to stay in business and ink and paper!!

:G

On the clogging issue, I have never had a clog in ANY printer I have owned...I have 3 Canons and this Epson and had a 1280 as well.

There are many posts about printers clogginf for sure, Epson and Canon...lots of running hot watere and soaking print heads overnight in exotic chemicals!!

And I have a solution for that.....later.

BUT:

All this said when I look at what the print quality is, all the stuff I and everyone else has said takes a back seat..so to speak.

Its what the prints look like to me and to my customers..

Its what please me, and my customers and what they want to buy.

If I can buy a printer that offers me ALL those postive attributes better yet, but none can...

This is why some of us have more than one printer.

Again, don't sell yourself short.

I used to think ONLY canon prnters can make great glossies...not any more.

You can hope some printer will be able to handle more paper types...

You can hope some printer types will be more water resitant...

You can hope some prnter types will have better archival inks...

You can hope that some printer typs will be able to do 44" panoramics...

You can talk youself into the best BW printer and one day you just might be at craft fair and see someone's awesome 13 x 44 " panoramic on Crane Museo or a very nice Velvet Fine Art paper and you may wish that you made a differnt choice...

But there is a printer that can do most and this is the R1800. You can have it today and not wait.

None of these printers in this class, can match the prints that the R1800 does with fine art papers.

Depending on what effect you want each of these papere and ink combinations will bring out a wide variety of sublities in a print...

My simple anti-clogging procedure is to use you printer at least once a week. I print out at least 2 prints a week in the lulls. Ususally in th ebusy times I will print out 30 or 40 prints a week...not a clogging issue here at all.

Epson highly recommends that pigment based printers use the ink up in 6 months...or you wil lhave issues. When you install the ink cartridges you instructed to shake them up 4 - 5 times...picgment inks are a bit temperamental but the results that can be achieved with them on the art type papers is nothing short of spectacular....black and white prints on an art paper is a sight to behold.

Good to discuss all this with you all, I wish you the best with yur choices, keep an open mind!!

I can see you all are very printer smart, so I will ask my question here. My i9900 used approx once every 3 weeks or so will run a series of this clicking noise prior to when I assign a print job. First about 10 clicks then about 20 then about 30 and sometimes about 40 clicks and then it will start printing the pictures. I'm using a lot of ink for this and it is very costly for the ink. (I use only canon ink). Does anyone know what the deal is here???? If I knew this before buying this printer I would not of purchased it. Stuck with it now!!!!! Warranty runs out in 2 weeks

Alex,
Thanks giving voice to the endless round of thinking on the matter of what features a printer should have. And thanks also for the feedback on the all the papers you have tested with the R1800.
I do fine art printing and graphic design on matte paper- and have been waiting to hear some results on the R1800.
Actually I bought the i9900 a month ago, but after really trying for a few weeks- printing, calibrating, and adjusting... and frustration, I wasn't very happy with the results for my purposes- so I returned it. (I found the i9900 to have a smoothing effect, which took away some details from my printed images. Maybe good for color photos, but not art work).
I am confused about one thing though with the new Epson.
I also like being able to use less expensive paper to produce greeting cards and design samples.
I have read that the heavyweight matte paper and coated inkjet doesn't work so well with the printer. I wonder if you have tried these as well, and if so, to what result?

...."a fully calibrated color flow and prints match exactly".... (this was in a post youmade on Thurs. 4/14) at the very end.

What is a fully calibrated color flow? I am seriously thinking about getting the Epson R1800 after many many hours of reading and discussion forums, etc. But, I had a Epson 1280 and never ever got the print color right on the first try and spent a ton of money on reprinting and reprinting until I got the colors I wanted on my photo. I don't have the money to spend on a "spyder" color montior calibrator, especially now that I am probably going to get the R1800 (plus I have tons of photopaper lying around from the 1280). So, the only thing holding me up from ordering the R1800 is worrying about not getting the printed photo colors as expected - as seen on my monitor. I as many who have this problem have a liquid type flat screen monitor.

Thanks. I really don't understand profiling either. I believe both subjects are the same problem? I'm confused again. I feel like I need an engineering degree to use the R1800:roll:

tony and alex,
The printer you seek is currently in production by a joint group of former HP and Epson engineers - it will be designated as the HePson R18-8750. The colors are lightfast, you can scuba dive with them while viewing, no more nozzels to clog as they are replaced by lasers with ink encapsulated on the beam itself and come complete with a personal maid/assistant to facilitate whatever cleaning is necessary. Inks are to be made in 1 gallon tanks and cost $400 each, but last a long time. They are also producing papers and accompanying profiles for about 56 types and sizes. The only downside is the printer will cost $14,500.00 and only be available in Borneo and Botswana. But, if you ever contemplate a move to Botswana, look out....

sherrye,
I'm not speaking for Alex, but a fully managed color flow is indeed necessary to obtain best possible results. It starts with proper profiling of all hardware in the process (from camera thru editing software to monitor to print output). It is a deeper discussion than this post accomodates, but it essentially means maintaining color management throughout. In other words, shoot in aRGB or sRGB as your camera or needs dictate, view the editing in the same workspace on your monitor, which should be calibrated by hardware (or at least Adobe gamma or other software - an inferior method though) then convert to the proper output space. For example, convert an aRGB image to sRGB for web or to a printer profile for printing. Failure to follow a proper workflow will result in images that look and print far different color tones and transitions than what you thought you had.

Skipping a step (such as leaving an image in aRGB and sending it to the web that way) will result in washed out colors and color shift. You won't see it in Photoshop because Photoshop is color aware and shows the best image - the web is not and is expecting sRGB. If a web image is seen in aRGB it suffers greatly. Same for a printer. If you merely save an image as sRGB and apply no printer profile of any sort, you are challenging the printer to guess and it often guesses wrong. Like I said, it's a little complex, but once grasped is easily dealt with. I think Luminous Landscape and Dry Creek Photo both have full explanations and examples on their sites that you may want to look at.